How being Ugly and a Pizza caused my Type 1 Diabetes

I like movies alot. So much so that I did a degree in making movies. As it turns out I just like watching them, not making them.

I think I watched 3 movies in the cinema this week. It may be because I like movies. It may also be because I am doing whatever I can to avoid having to write my vows. I know, I know, I'm so good with words, why would that be hard? It is. I am a very sarcastic person normally. You might have noticed in previous posts. So the challenge for me is to not make a joke of my vows and actually act serious.

I'm getting off track. I watched 3 movies last week. Cinderella. Avengers. And The Duff.

If you believe the duff, you can get pizza-induced diabetes. I think I should have been cranky about the ridiculous joke, but it was so absurd, I actually laughed at someone making fun of diabetes.

So naturally, I have compiled a list of reasons, according the media/your grandmother/T.V and even the waving cat on my desk, that I have diabetes:

1. Pizza. As given to us by the Duff. At least getting diabetes will be delicious.
2. If you believe the new Priceline Advertisement currently playing on TV, Beauty and Health go hand in hand, and you can't have one without the other. Yes, they actually say that. So there you go, I just have diabetes because I'm ugly. But I'm sure once I cake myself thick enough in beauty products my pesky little diabetes problem will go away. So there's hope.
3. My parents clearly just fed me sugar all the live-long-day when I was a kid. Vegetables? Never touched the stuff. Actually, this isn't far from the truth. Just replace every food you can think of with chicken nuggets and you have my childhood diet. Not because my parents were bad parents, but because I was the worlds fussiest child. And I would actually let myself be starving rather than eat something I didn't like. And all I liked were chicken nuggets.
4. I was born with it. Its like a birth defect or something. That they just didn't notice it for 22 years. Surprisingly, this is a very common misconception about how I came to have T1D, I guess because people learn there is a small genetic component in some cases.
5. I just need to run around more. If I wasn't so lazy, I wouldn't have diabetes. Well, I got it now, so I may as well just go lay on the couch forever. And ever. And ever. I'm just assuming my body is psychic and can tell that I will be less active in the future, and thats why I got diabetes back when I was running an hour every day.
6. I looked at a cupcake once. Instant pancreas shut down. Those sugar-laden cakes of yumminess should probably be subject to legislation about packing and contain health warnings. They should also be kept behind the counter with the cigarettes and sold to people over the age of 18 only and not to be consumed within 10m of a child. Think about the poor, diabetic children!



Any readers got any absurd reasons for why you have diabetes?

___________________________________________________________________________________

Last Night's Reason Why I'm Hypo:

I went shopping yesterday for last minute wedding stuff. Why would it not have a carry-on effect through until 4am?

Diabetes Wedding Prep

There's a countdown in my diary. 17 days to go. With 17 days to go I visited my educator to kick my diabetes into gear for the big day. I certainly don't want to be nursing highs or lows on my wedding day.

When my H2B & I started planning our wedding, we knew we had to consider how Morty (my diabetes) would react to certain elements of our wedding. We knew he would insist that he was included in the big day...he's kind of the page boy we never wanted. I wouldn't doubt that he'll somehow cause our wedding rings to mysteriously disappear.

Our wedding date, whilst it seems like a random draw date wise, was actually carefully planned. Morty doesn't like it when the weather is hot. He gives me hypos. Morty doesn't like it when the weather is cold. Morty demands the weather be juuuust right. Oddly, Diabetes was actually a help because as it turns out, if we had had a summer wedding I would have had to get a different, less suffocating dress. And I rather like my suffocating dress.

When discussing our ceremony time with my DE, she recognised a sudden drop that I get most afternoons. This sudden BGL drop just so happens to coincide with my ceremony time. So we've cut back my basal around this time and I'll be happy to run just a little bit higher than normal (between 6 - 10 will be my goal) for the afternoon.

In order to allow me to forget Morty as much as possible on the big day, H2B  & I basically used our menu tasting as a diabetes test run. We counted carbs and insulin given and BGL reaction for everything we ate so I don't have to do it again come our wedding day. Now I just have to dig that information back up...

As a diabetic bride to be, I have added a few extra things to my list of things to keep with me when getting ready - "Poppers with staws" Check. Straws a definite so I don't ruin my lipstick during a hypo. "Finger wipes" Check. One of my biggest fears about the wedding day is that I will accidentally wipe my bloody fingers on my dress after testing. I've had nightmares over it.

Then comes the part where I divvy up my needed items between the groom and father of the bride. Both of them will be carrying 1 testing kit and 1 hypo treatment in their suit jackets each. I am having a pocket sewn into the very bottom of my dress to house my pump in, but theres no room for Jellybeans or a testing kit. My dress is so form fitting I can't bend over to reach the pocket anyway. I've scheduled a time with my Bridesmaids to give them a crash course in bolusing off my pump - because they will be the only ones who can reach it.

But probably the weirdest thing I have had to consider in accommodating diabetes into my wedding day is actually the effect it has on my drivers licence. Every year I get my medical certificate renewed for driving at the end of April. So at the end of April the government is insisting on wasting the taxpayers funds to print me a new licence which will be valid for all of 4 days before I have to go through the whole licence process again for my name change. I called and explained and asked for an extension. Nope, none granted.

Being a diabetic bride certainly has its challenges, with just that extra 20% of planning to make sure the big day goes as smoothly as possible. But I'm super excited - I've done the prep to make sure I can have as much of a diabetes-free-day as possible. Plus I made a super cute wedding skin for my pump, so that's exciting. And yes, you can see pictures, after the wedding.



_________________________________________________________________________________

Today's Reason Why I am Hypo:

I felt cold so I took a warm shower. The most annoying part was that I felt the hypo symptoms when I had only managed to shave one leg. I guess I'll have to take another shower later so I can shave the other leg. Until then, I guess deforestation is only half complete.

Diabetes Control: As Easy as ABC

My H2B (that's Hubby-to-Be in Bridespeak) likes to watch ABC for some reason that I can't quite grasp. I strongly suspect he's under the illusion that they're more truthful. Or he just likes watching old people talk in monotone, maybe its a soothing thing to him.

Yesterday, he put on ABC as he does in the middle of the day on a weekend. They advertised a segment to appear last night on diabetes and a 'miracle cure'. My spidey sense was tingling, alarm bells were ringing and the word poppycock flashed into my mind in Neon letters.

So at 9.30pm last night I settled down with a big bowl of popcorn, prepared for some entertaining comedy. I lie. I didn't have popcorn, can't eat the stuff because it tops out my 'reasons why I'm Hypo' list.

As predicted, ABC had no idea what they were prattling on about. Everyone listen up, Blueberry Tea is gonna kick your diabetes into gear. That's actually a new one. Hallelujah we are saved!! The Menzies institute has your back. If you look up the Menzies institute and search for their diabetes research you are met with this very succinct and to the point description of how they interpret diabetes: 'Diabetes is a disease'. Their words radiate such a strong understanding of my medical condition, so I'm definitely going to just shut up now and drink the blueberry tea.

Sorry I lie again. Seems to be a problem with me tonight. I'm not going to drink the blueberry tea. Because blueberry tea is not going to cure or help my Type 1 Diabetes, as ABC so informs me:  "A herbal tea with blueberry as its base has attracted the attention of medical researchers at the Menzies Institute for its potential to reduce insulin dependence in diabetics."

Not only are they blanketing all types of diabetes again, but they specifically mention insulin dependence, which lends people to relate the report more towards people with Type 1 Diabetes. The article is based off a single-person case study - an elderly Type 2 patient on insulin. They also talk to a nutritionist who says she has done some trials of her own and that those who drank the tea had better glycaemic control. I'm no medical officer, but if patients have bothered to go to a nutritionist, it is likely that they have made other significant changes to their dietary habits alongside drinking the tea that would aid glycaemic control.

How does this miracle cure work, you ask? A senior researcher has the very simple answer: "The tea has enabled that hormone, insulin, to improve glucose uptake into muscle and by doing that it lowers blood glucose levels and it does that by stimulating blood flow,".  How amazing, so does Viagra. Basically, if the ABC are saying a healthy lifestyle will help to aid control in diabetes, then the article is not really telling us anything we don't already know.

As a person with Type 1 Diabetes I only have 1 point to make really. Don't drink the tea. Well you can, but only drink it because you like to drink tea. Don't stop taking your insulin. We're called insulin dependent for a reason. Because our insulin-producing beta cells are effectively dead. You can test it out if you want - go dig up your poor old dead bunny Flopsy from the garden and give her a hit of this so-called good stuff. Chances are, if Flopsy doesn't come back to life spontaneously, neither will your beta cells.

The 'Healthy' Experiance Day

There's this funny thing happening lately in society (or, at least, the part of society that lives on social media).  I really only thought about how odd it is today. I had a friend on Facebook make a comment on how her day was going, as people do. It started with 'Had a healthy lunch!" followed by a description of her driveway or something equally as everydayish.

I just can't understand how it is that eating healthily/exercising/doing the right thing for your body is now something that we brag about it in society. It's almost become some sort of unusual activity that people do 'just to try' or for 'fun'. I can picture in conversations that one woman might turn to another and go "Oh, you'll never believe what I did last Tuesday! I ate some cucumber. It was very fresh, I might try it again some time".

Being healthy should be a normal part of a day, not something that's actually worth mentioning. Of course, mentioning it must obviously be a motivator to some people. And to some people being healthy is a hobby. So long as you are doing the right thing by your body, I will continue to put up with the 'I ate a salad and did a 5 minute walk' statuses if it gives the status-maker the push they need to eat better and exercise every day.

Doing what's right for your body should be easy, not hard. It shouldn't be something that we have to talk up in order to make people want to treat their body right. We are so saturated in society with images of how easy it is to just go get takeaway. In reality, I find that most of the time its much quicker to whip up something simple. Wraps can take me just 15 minutes to make, including cooking a meat filling and cutting salad. In comparison, take-away foods mean having to put on pants (yes, kicking off pants as soon as you get home is a thing with my generation. I'm sure when you visit old folks' homes in 60 years time, all us elderly folk will be walking around pantless), gather my stuff together, leave the house in search of take-out, order and wait for take-out to be cooked, come home and eat.

Schools teach a lot of subjects simply for the sake of making sure students are able to learn to retain information. Imagine if we swapped out things that might not be necessary to learn to subjects that could help not only students live well in the future, but society as a whole? Do I really need to know when Captain Cook landed in Australia? Its a neat little fact to know if you intend on making a career out of trivia nights. I honestly don't know when he landed, so I really hope it's not something I need to know in order to successfully reproduce or anything important in life.

 Imagine if we taught our kids how to shop smart, cook smart and live healthy? I don't remember making anything involving a salad or vegetables in home ec - but baking scones seems to be an essential life skill.

*******

Reasons Why I Am Low:

It was 5pm. Any excuse for a party.

Reasons Why I'm Hypo

I'm going to start a new segment that I add to the bottom of my posts. I'm going to model it off the brilliant blog, 'Reasons My Son is Crying'. Cos the reasons I hypo are pretty much reasons why a 2 year old cries.

To kick it off, Today I am hypo because I paid off my car loan.

Walked into Commonwealth Bank on 6.5. Walked out of Commonwealth Bank 10 minutes later on 3.2. Minus one car loan and also minus a juice box.

I'm a free woman, which is apparantly something my diabetes does not agree with.

The Scream

All pumpers have a secret fear instilled upon us. A fear that one day, we may drop our pump in the toilet bowl.

Today, my fear came true. The clip lost its grip on my pants, and my pump took a dive straight down. I watched in horror as it fell. I might have screamed. My hands worked overtime in ultra-speed to grasp at the tubing. But it still went in for a short dip. In less than a second I had jerked it back up and rushed it over to the bathroom sink. I unclipped it from my site and set about rendering it emergency assistance.

I gently dabbed the water off, taking out the reservior and gel case. I then left it to dry on a towel for 5 minutes whilst I gathered together my entire stash of alcohol swabs. Whilst, thankfully, the toilet hadn't been used yet, my pump still went in the toilet, so I wasn't taking any chances. I carefully swabbed every single inch of my pump, clip and gel case with alcohol wipes. I changed out the reservoir and tubing for new ones.

I finished off by basically bathing in hand sanitiser.

I still felt dirty. I couldn't eat breakfast; I felt so physically ill. In a way, I was hoping for a button error or some other malfunction so I didn't have to clip it back onto me. I began imaging scenarios at my doctors office where he told me that I had aids now because of the short dip my pump took. Somehow I thought aids would be lying dormant in my toilet and would then inch its way up my pump tubing and into the site. Which I know is probably super duper 100% far fetched.

I wasn't even sure I could admit that it happened. Maybe I should just repress my memory of the incident?  Not to be melodramatic, but I wondered if I should join a support group for this. Or go to some counselling. I'm afraid I'll develop feelings of resentment towards Luna. It's probably my fault for calling it Luna. That chick has the worst luck.

I'll never speak of it again. One day I'll be at a diabetic meet-up, or conference or otherwise, and someone will mention their fear that this will happen. I'll catch another pumpers eye and we'll both know that this fear is real and warranted. But we'll never speak of it and will just continue our lives like it never happened.

I'm a 'pump-in-the-toilet' survivor. Look out for the movie deal.

#effyourhealthstandards

Tess Munster somehow made it back to my newsfeed again today. I say again, because she's been there a good part of the past month.

For those who haven't a clue who I'm talking about, Tess Munster is a plus size model who recently got a large modelling contract.

I have no issues with plus size models. I think for the majority of the time, the term plus size is wildly inaccurate, because it basically just means 'average sized human being'. I don't own any fashion magazines and I have no idea what a Dolce and Gabbana is. I don't know fashion. I don't look at fashion. I shop at K-mart. That stuff is cheap and it fits over my butt. Like actually fits over it.

Kmart are pretty good on their advertising. I generally just see healthy looking men and women in their catalogues. In the last catalogue, a model had arm fat. And that's who we should be seeing. HEALTHY men and women in advertising.

Tess Munster is anything but healthy. I do have to give her some props. She is body confident.

Unfortunately she promotes a lifestyle to vulnerable girls who aren't body confident that tells them it's ok to become morbidly obese. She isn't someone who I would want an impressionable young teen to look up to. Neither are stick thin models, but they don't make my newsfeed.

Tess had a lot to do with #effyourbeautystandards. Thats a great movement. But she may as well add #effyourhealthstandards #dieyoung.

I have Type 1 Diabetes, an autoimmune condition that I could not have prevented no matter how hard I exercised or how well I ate. It hurts me so much to see people advocating for unhealthy lifestyle choices in the way that Tess Munster does. #effyourbeautystandards isn't about telling the media that we don't have to be stick thin, with huge boobs to be attractive anymore. It's now about my life, my body, I'll do what I want and what the hell is a carrot?

Tess Munster's social media pages makes being unhealthy look desirable. She's glamorous, eats what she wants wihtout caring and travels the world.  What she isn't sharing on her facebook, or instagram or whatever it is kids are logging into and looking at these days, is the statistics on health issues from morbid obesity. She isn't sharing when her doctors warn her about Type 2 Diabetes, or heart diseae, or cancer. She doesn't share her BMI, or pictures of small cuts that take twice as long to heal with poor circulation. She isn't able to take a picture of her insides and share her possibly hardened areries, or struggling organs with you. She doesn't tell you how long it takes her to walk up a set of stairs, or how much harder she has to breathe to do that.

She's a model. Hello photoshop. I wear a size 12 and I have cellulite galore. And stretch marks. And my curves are sometimes just lumps of fat and not really curves. Tess Munster does not appear to have these. Her curves are smooth, she has no cellulite and where are the stretch marks? At size 22, she has these. What happened to #effyourbeautystandards?

 I wish I could tell her exactly how much she does not want Type 2 Diabetes. Because it's not glamourous. Finding blood all over your hands/legs/face 5 minutes after a finger-prick isn't glamourous. Wincing in pain during needle isn't a great model face. Having to plan your life to a tee to include your diabetes would not make the jet-setting life very easy, I would imagine. It also might be hard to model with no legs. Just saying, as someone who has this secret fear about their diabetes.

I don't wish Tess ill. I don't hate Tess. I just think that Tess should appreciate that as someone who has such a large audience, she should take responsibility of that and pop up a picture of a healthy meal every so often. Or snap a pic mid-work out. Encourage people that you can still #effyourbeautystandards whilst being healthy, instead of using #effyourbeautfystandards to justify an unhealthy lifestyle.

640genius

Let's start this post off with something amusing. A few days ago my 3 hour CGM trace totally looked like a cat. Excuse the bad BGL. Apparently my supposed carb-free meal that I bolused 2 units for anyway is not all that carb free.

Moving onto the important stuff. Yesterday, a 4 year old boy from Perth recieved the 1st MiniMed 640G pump. I had the opportunity to play with one of the pumps last week, so I thought it only fitting that I should wake myself up enough to ramble about the new pump, and how in love I am. And how super jealous I am of that 4 year old kid.

This is just a first impression based on an hour of asking my rep loads of questions; but I'm preeeeeety sure if I was one of those people who married mundane random objects then I would be saying my vows to the 640G pump come May instead of my fiance. If you're reading this my dashing H2B, sorry darling. Girls just like men who save their lives. And my pump does it more than you do.

The 640G. Here we go. Aesthetically, if you're a boy, you're gonna love it. If an insulin pump could have muscles, this one could have rivaled Arnold Schwarzenegger at his peak. It looks strong, and sturdy, and ready to do some life-saving business. I will definitely be upgrading to the pink model (the 640G comes in pink, blue, opalescent white, black and purple) come upgrade time, because I am a girl....and I like my pumps to look pretty. All the pumps have a black base, with a coloured front. You can choose to stick the colour onto the back as well or leave it plain. Personally, I hope they release decals or gel cases for it as with the previous models of pump. Size wise this baby is only a few mm more than the previous models, probably to help with all that new waterproofing!

The new 640g

Now here's the fun part, all the exciting features that I am still trying to wrap my head around. As always with me, let's do a list!

• Bigger, brighter, better screen. Actually I don't think its bigger, but it is certainly brighter and better. The screen is now colourful and has a light-sensor that will change the back-light according to your surroundings. No more squinting in the sun and groping around blindly at night.
• The screen displays more stats at a glance. It tells you how much active insulin you have on board without having to go into a stat screen anymore. If you have CGM on the graph is displayed all the time. There is a display at the top of the meter for insulin left in the cartridge & battery, as well as a visual for when your next calibration is required for CGM. There's probably some other stuff that I forgot already.
• Menus are almost the same, but with some added features, such as the ability to choose which bolus types you want to have activated. For example I use Normal & Dual Wave boluses quite often but I haven't got the foggiest idea what a Square bolus is...so no need to have that activated.
• There are options now for a pre-set temporary basal. As with the last pump you can add more than 1 basal pattern, but you can now add temporary basal patterns of a predetermined time length and strength. So you can pick a preset exercise temporary basal, etc. You can also NAME these patterns, so you don't have to remember what pattern A, B and C are meant to stand for.
• Again 2 reservoir sizes :)
• Waterproof!!!! Although I never needed it before as I am such a bad swimmer, I do feel confident in the fact that I can accidentally fall into a pool with my pump on now if I should wish it. Or get caught out in the rain, which is actually very likely for me as I love love rain.
• Customisable alarms.
• Meter that talks to the pump, with a better margin spec than the original (15% as opposed to 20). The Meter also has a strip port light for late-night testing. And my personal favourite that totally won me over to actually trying the meter: DOUBLE-DIP strip technology. Yep, you read that right. NO MORE NOT ENOUGH BLOOD ERRORS! Does anyone else realise how much money I will save on wasted strips because I didn't get enough blood. (Just clarifying: double-dip technology means you can add more blood to the strip if you didnt put enough on the 1st time).
• Glucose meter boluses for the pump. It does not use the bolus wizard, but you can use preset boluses on it. Eg. you can save a 'breakfast', etc. bolus if you eat similar carbs for that meal and just select that bolus on your meter. Soooo if you were like me, and say, getting married and did not want to pull your pump out all the time, you could do your wedding tasting prior to your wedding, count the carbs and save it as a specific bolus that you could access off your meter. Not counting carbs on wedding day? Check. Also perfect for girls who don't want to grope around their tops to bolus on nights out.
• Glucose meter is the download USB. I have 3 and I have lost them all, but I don't lose my meter.
• Infusion Set change alarm. Yep, you can tell it to remind you. Which is perfect for me because I forget and then find out halfway through the day that I have run out of insulin. Whoops.
• The pump clip acts as the battery-opening tool. So you can finally bank all those 10c pieces you keep lying around just for this use.
• You can stop a bolus delivery in progress with a quick stop bolus button during delivery, instead of going through the menu and having to suspend the whole pump and then restarting the whole pump again.

The new 640G, Sensor & meter in real life compared to the brochure

There's probably a bunch more stuff that I didn't get to see.

Which brings us to the CGM. New Smartguard technology. I know they would have done some trials and if I did a Google search I would probably find some statistics to throw at you about how well it really works and all that jazz. But honestly, I'm diabetic, I deal with enough numbers already, I don't want to look at statistics. I just want to look at what it does. Which is to try to stop hypos, before they happen.

So while my current pump has low glucose suspend, which suspends the pump on low glucose, Smartguard has predicted low glucose suspend. Basically it will try to head off the big bad hypo bear before it even attacks by suspending insulin delivery before you get hypo to keep you in a hypobear-free territory. Once your glucose is stable or rising again the insulin pump will resume insulin delivery so you don't get high as a kite either.

It is a good point to note that the transmitter is different - it has a G written on it (and probably is more advanced too) - so you cannot carry over your old transmitter to use with the new system. However I have always gotten my transmitters on great deals, so I wouldn't be surprised if they offered you a deal on sensor start to help with set-up costs.

I should probably leave it there for now and let you all revel in the fact that technology is 1 step closer to the closed-loop/artificial pancreas system.






Disclaimer: Medtronic did not ask me to review or write about the new pump. I just like new technology and wouldn't have left them alone until they let me see the new technology for myself.

The arrival of Luna Lovegood.

Luna Lovegood came into my life this past hot, humid Monday. Her arrival was announced by the sudden screaming of an air raid alarm my doorbell*. I waited 5 days for her to arrive. 5 long, confusing, up and up blood sugar days.

She was hurriedly thrust through my doorway by an irate muggle delivery man, who demanded I make an unbreakable vow before I could take her. I signed my life away for her.

In awe, I took this beautiful being into my home. I carefully pulled her from her travelling confines and set her up at the table. Gazing upon the power of her. Staring at the beautiful blue.

Hurriedly, I couldn't wait anymore. My new pump. I had forgotten my morning Levemir so she had arrived in perfect time. She sang as I set her up. I hated the singing and told her to shut up. I quietened her to a hum, as I set about tasking her to become my perfect companion.

I connected her up. Relief flooded through me.  Luna Lovegood, the carefree spirit, allowing me to be me again. And doing some serious magic on my BGLs.


* - I'm not even kidding. Everytime someone rings the buzzer to my unit, I think we are under attack.

Dear Jamie Oliver (An Open and Angry Letter)

Dear Jamie Oliver,

I don't know what you hoped to achieve with that blown-up piece of ass that you put on display today. Something about clean water apparently. Unfortunately, That's not what I saw. I just saw someone being wrong about diabetes. Again. So I will let you know that you are not making a new and profound statement about the correlation between certain foods and drinks and Type 2 Diabetes (Yes - there is more than 1 type of diabetes...something you clearly did not even consider when erecting your gigantic 'advert about how little you know of diabetes' coke can)

I guess you did achieve something: You once again brought diabetes to attention in a light that practically begs us to be ashamed of ourselves for having diabetes. You once again told the public that this is something we are doing to ourselves (through our decision to drink certain drinks or eat certain foods). The public doesn't make the connection to stop drinking coke as it MAY be a causation to diabetes. The public just sees you purporting to play the blame game with PWD's (person with diabetes). They will see this and follow suit.

You are not making any statement at all that the public hasn't been told at least 1008103427 times already by various health organisations. So here's a tip: stay out of it. Because at least the health organisations do it with tact, and facts. The health organisations don't just go about erecting huge signs of ignorance everywhere they go to try to make their point.

In fact, for your point to have been even remotely construed as close to a real fact you would have needed to label that coke can with: "Type 2 Diabetes proven to be caused exclusively by drinking coke all day, where the patient has undergone studies to prove that they exercised, ate otherwise healthily, had no family history of type 2 diabetes, had never taken any drugs or medications that might aid in developing type 2 diabetes and been blessed with amazing genetics, not be caused by having an old and tired pancreas and not be of Aboriginal, Indian, Chinese, or any other ethnicitiy that predisposes to Type 2 Diabetes". It might have taken up a lot more space on the can, but at least it wouldn't be insulting or degrading to anyone who currently has diabetes. And it might have actually informed the general public about diabetes and its causes instead of continuing to instill the mistaken sense that 'we did it to ourselves' towards diabetics, that trust me, we already feel from the general public.

I have had Type 1 Diabetes (not related to an intake of Coke in any way, shape or form) for nearly 3 years now. I haven't had a drink of coke in over 5 years now. I bet your mind is blown right now. Somebody who was young, fit, healthy and DIDN'T drink coke got diabetes.

Diabetes isn't the only obesity, coke-drinking related disease out there. If you wouldn't plaster 'Stomach cancer' across the abomination that you dragged out today, don't drag diabetes into it.

Jamie Oliver, for some reason your ability to make food has made you somewhat of a celebrity. You have the power to influence people. And today you abused that power to bring diabetes into something that it didn't need to be brought into. You are talking about access to clean drinking water in Californian schools. What does diabetes have to do with this? You could have talked about dehydration, which I would assume would be more prominent if clean water for drinking is not provided. Or kidney problems, probably miles more relative than diabetes,

In fact, as 1 commentor on your post pointed out - Coke can actually SAVE the lives of people with diabetes (all types) during hypoglycaemic episodes.

Given that celebrity is as celebrity does and doubtless you'll stick your hand into the diabetes pie again, I hope that you can grow from this experiance, and consult with the people you are hurting before you hurt them. Maybe approach your local diabetes body and get their advice?

You might find it'll be better recieved next time if you do.

Most sincerely,

-Someone your ignorance hurt.